Carnival of Space #61: Tunguska Edition

Welcome everyone to the 61st Carnival of Space. I am delighted to be your host for this edition of the Carnival marking the 100th Anniversary of the Tunguska Event.

As this is my first time hosting, I also want to welcome you to Mang's Bat Page where a Cub Scout leader takes a strong interest in astronomy, space exploration, cryptography, and why things fail - all hopefully with a Scouting flavour. If you want to know about the name see Why Mang?

I encourage you all to leave comments. Normally this site is moderated, but for the next week I've opened things up. Please keep all comments PG as I have youth readers and I don't want to delete comments (I have no ability to edit them).

Thanks to my friend Richard for the Tesla death ray photo
and not electrocuting anyone in the process.
(BTW. the spark to the grounding rod on the left was over 8 feet!)

So let's explore the real cause of the Tunguska blast ...

Well perhaps not the real cause. So without further ado ... lets get this party started.

First our non-Tunguska submissions ...

From Earth to the Moon and Mars

At Nextbigfuture, Brian Wang reports that the Blackswift Hypersonic program may not get fully funded for the $750 million that it needs, but the program has a lot of interesting technology and innovations for greater efficiency. Read more about The technology of the hypersonic Falcon HTV-3X.

From Centauri Dreams, Paul Gilster, sends us NanoSail-D: Solar Sail Deployment Planned which looks at the upcoming attempt to launch a small solar sail for deployment experiments in space on a modest budget.

At A Babe in the Universe, Louise Riofrio, gives us a peek at Altair. Perhaps the next lunar lander by 2019. And possibly a large step towards a moon base.

From Altair VI, David Portree sends us articles on two early US studies: the first Mars sample return study (1967) and the first lunar outpost resupply study (1992). There are some nice Gemini pics too.

And at Colony Worlds, Darnell Clayton considers that future Martian colonists may need to rely on "solar steam power" technology in Solar Steam To Power Martian Cities? Oh, and there's a video too.

Ian O'Neill at Astroengine considers future Mars colonists in Watch out Phoenix! Don't Scratch the CD! I guess, the receipt will be the least of their problems returning it.

Update: Emily at the Planetary Society has an update on the activities of the Phoenix mission at Mars, up to sol 36. This update contains some amazing amateur-produced panoramas, and some more troubling news about TEGA. Read more in Phoenix sol 36 update: Scraping in Wonderland, next steps for TEGA.

Science!

Over at Starts with a Bang!, Ethan Siegel announces the publication of a paper about Dark Matter in Our Solar System. Congratulations Ethan!

Mike Simonsen at Simostronomy looks at Dusty TOADs a rare class of White Dwarves with a bit of a temper. Please pass the sun screen folks.

From the Orbiting Frog, Rob sends us plans on how to make your own spectrometer! (with everyday household items no less). Pity, for once his science experiments don't involve food or drink. It's okay Rob, the Cub Scouts will forgive you :)

Entertainment, Photography, and Art

Moving down-under, Ian Musgrave at Astroblog has some photos and animation of The ISS, Mars, Saturn and Crux. (Hey Ian, I could use some southern feedback on Navigation Without Compass or GPS).

At Out of the Cradle, Ken Murphy our Lunar Librarian, provides a nice of overview and update on Japanese space comics (Manga) and cartoons (Anime).

Music of the Spheres discusses the new Pixar movie WALL-E. Should we fear science and technology, or embrace it? The answer from WALL-E the robot in 2700: yes! Read more at WALL-E: The Trash Route to Space Colonies.

At the Martian Chronicles, Ryan Anderson looks at the new Astrobiology related computer game Spore and considers some of the science in the game.

Insight

At Cumbrian Sky, Stuart Atkinson takes a personal reflection on his enthusiasm for astronomy, outreach, and those who do and don't get it in Woah... I know Astronomy.... Well worth a read.

Over at Artsnova Art Gallery, Jim Plaxco takes on the The Religion of the Face on Mars and talks about why people want to see a face.

Rob from Orbiting Frog nominated Stuart's article at the Astronomy Blog titled Changes to ESA?

Bruce Cordell at 21st Century Waves writes "10 Reasons Why China is Good for Space" and looks at some economic reasons why the decade from 2015 will be interesting for space exploration and development.

From Free Space blogs at Discovery News, Irene Klotz writes about Twittering spacecraft and blogs. Phoenix twitters. And now, apparently, so does her blog.

History & Conservation

Robert Pearlman at collectSPACE has contributed an editorial to Discovery Channel's space blogs about saving the bricks recently blasted out of the Pad 39A flame trench in If these Walls could Talk. I'd sure like to buy one.

Update: Todd Flowerday at Catholic Sensibility reflects on Satellite Imagination: the Herschel years. It seems a lot of early astronomers had some rather large blind spots. But not Herschel.

Tunguska

Yikes Fraser! I was sure there would be a raft of articles submitted on Tunguska. So following the motto of being prepared, I took the liberty of writing my own. Please enjoy reading Tunguska's Legacy.

I'd also like to nominate the following articles.

• Tunguska, One Century Later - Astroprof
• 100th Anniversary of a Cosmic Warning - Centauri Dreams
• 100 years ago today: KABLAM!!!!! - The Bad Astronomer

Wrap-up

Congratulations to the Bad Astronomer on his move to Discovery blogs.

Thanks to Fraser for letting me fill in this week as the Carnival guest host.

Finally, thanks to everyone for reading. Please take some time and explore the Bat Page, fill in the guest book or contact me.

Update: Oops and I almost forgot NEOSSat

Music of the Spheres posted Don't Blame Canada and Universe Today posted Canada to build World's First Asteroid-hunting Satellite.

Until next week ...
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Carnival of Space Index @ Universe Today

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